


Take your time (we'll get there)

by tothemovies (jarofactonbell)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, M/M, but don't worry for I Am Here, dramatic and overtly romantic declarations are IN now pass it on, hello it is love yourself hours, kiba is the best boy, kibashino is canon but kishi is just afraid of their power, shino??? oh my god he's kiba's emotional support bug boy(friend), this all started because i was watching a tedtalk on self love and it was: Powerful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 03:58:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17780147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofactonbell/pseuds/tothemovies
Summary: “All my youth, all my time, all my thoughts, they belongs to you. That is fixed in the moon. But before you can love me with all of you, you must love yourself first. Because it hurts me when you hate a part of yourself where I love everywhere and everything you have with fervour. We have time, even if we don't have our youth. Take your time, for us.”He sniffles, but not quite. These night time escapades haven't been happening for a long time, per se, but they have been happening, and Shino makes his lungs collapse onto their own weight every single time.“Shino, that's so,” he blubbers into hair,genuine it makes me want to throw myself out a window.“Thanks.”





	Take your time (we'll get there)

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentine's day everyone have a kibashino i love them and you should too
> 
> and no, it's not for a zine, but it's,,,kinda alright to??? i liked it a lot, so i want to send it to places

He’s onto his 139th sheep, or  10001011 in the binary system that arbitrarily defines this lawless plane of existence for no good reason except that people think they’re all computers and everything can either be 1 or 0 and nothing grey in between -

Something very heavy knocks onto his window. One of his leg swings and his hip follows, and he hits the edge of his bed rolling down to the floor with a ‘thump’. 

There is a judgemental silence outside of his window. He’s not too sure he likes it.

He crawls to the window ledge, squints outside, and swallows back his scream when Shino’s unblinking eyes stare into the dark of his bedroom from outside his roof.

He slides the window aside and pokes his head out, whispering with all teeth and vindictive concern at his idiot catching a bus halfway across town to climb on his roof and looking at him while he’s pretending to be asleep like a creepy and sad reenactment of Edward Cullen.

_ “What the hell are you doing on my roof, Aburame?” _

“You couldn’t sleep,” Shino answers easily.

_ “Good job, genius, I can’t sleep every night, but that doesn’t answer why you’re here!” _

Shino meanwhile rises and starts walking at his window, and Kiba's honed dodging skills in hurdling give way to the burgeoning shock and dismay at the dangers surrounding their part of town and exactly how many apply to Shino. “Stop worrying. I can hear you thinking,” Shino tells him, a foot on his ledge. “Let's head to the night bus. Get dressed, don't wake the dog.”

He's rifling through the mess that is his bedroom floor, because there are all these assignments and his mind jumps everywhere because he's excited and Hinata’s immaculate organisation system had gone up in a literal hell site. Shino waits. Shino always waits, for Kiba's brain to have the time it needs so that I can settle down, only extending a silent hand when his hood is pulled over his head and he's climbing out of his own window. 

“You didn't even ask for my permission,” he grumbles. And takes Shino’s hand in his.

The tinted glasses aren’t necessary in the moonlight. The twinkle in the other boy’s eyes that is only a rarity to those who don’t interact with him on a casual and usual basis, is perpetual, as they ease themselves to ground.

“You would say yes whether I ask or not. We’re operating in total darkness. I’d thought I should save my words for lighter times.”

“Oh you comedian,” he squints in his eyes in that aggressive dog hunting mode that Hana crowned him with, ever since young. 

“Always a pleasure to entertain,” Shino bows, all mockery in his long and loose limbs. His steps are soundless little patters on the ground, invoking no dust storm in their wake, while Kiba’s steps are a horrendous inversion of that, big tromping steps imprinting his presence onto ground. The only way anyone would know that there are two brats meandering the roads of Konoha at night, in the junction from the Aburame compound and the Inuzuka district, is through solely listening to Kiba’s steps alone.   
  


 

It's not unusual, per se, for Shino to reach out to him on nights where sleep evades him. Shino, whose rest banks on a generous range of barely two or failing to reach six hours every night. With nothing to do in the night time, he takes to household chores, homework tasks, shows and fandoms online, yet there is still so much time that his mind constantly races ahead, surpassing what his body is capable of occupying it with an activity to pass the time threshold into morning light where others reside and wake in, so that the burden of social interactions will weigh his thoughts down to a muted hum, no longer out to terrorise him.

Because Kiba is crafted entirely on animal instincts, just as many a people have informed him, either out of affection or derision, he values the functions of the body. He whose reflexes and flesh take him prisoner rather than his thoughts, have long since regarded Shino as one of his, an extension of his body. He cannot be at ease when part of him hurts on the other side of town, on a flurry to fill up the void of boredom debilitating into slight insanity of his head with exhaustive martial arts or intensive reading that bruise his eyes and burn his arms, and Kiba is always, always the one to notice, and to patch him back up every time.

He looks into preventions of this restlessness, this sleeplessness.  _ Insomnia.  _ Not a great label. Not decisive until medical tests are carried out, but then in the eyes of society, they are members of esteemed families. They cannot waver under the weight of everything crashing onto their shoulders. There is no option but to stand taller. Become stronger, unfeeling. 

Their hands are loose, and knocking into each other. He thinks about his scattered homework and projects and letters to animal shelters and a sleeping Akamaru at the foot of his bed, all wrapped in the cocoon of the daylight world. 

He looks to Shino, glasses absent from his eyes completely, jacket unzipped, freed from the fetters he himself imposed on his body during the daytime. Their pinkies lock, a promise unspoken. Of which, he isn't quite certain.

“It's my job to overthink, Inuzuka. Don't do it too. I'll be out of a job,” a corner of Shino's mouth twitches upwards. Kiba wonders if it's the moon, or the breeze rifling through their skin that undo all the tenseness Shino wears like an armour over the beating skin underneath.

He likes this Shino the best. This is  _ his  _ Shino, the one he is allowed to see, to bump arms with, to laugh at and with, to exchange banter without a fear of offending him on a level that is too deep for his instinctive sense to detect. This is a Shino he doesn't want to share with the world, even if seeing it means a few hours of rest are sacrificed to the night time strolls around a sleeping town.

Well, so be it.

“I'm sure you can find another occupation,” he snipes back, nose wrinkling.

Shino doesn't answer him, only tightens his grip on Kiba's finger.

It does things to his heart, okay, and it's not appreciated. Really. This is an absolute downside. 

“Wanna race to the bus stop?” Shino asks. Doesn't say  _ well you look bored and tired.  _ Doesn't need to point out loud  _ this is my attempt of demonstrating my ability to observe and care about your condition.  _

Shino had never been amongst the number of people who feel the compulsion, an urge, to point out the subtlety of their actions towards him, to connect the dots because his idle brain cannot act fast enough for their liking. Shino waits. And waits. Kiba catches up eventually. Shino has all the time. 

There is almost no doubt in the space of waiting, between Shino's words, and Kiba's reaction to the intention of those words. This silent faith, unwavering in the certainty of Kiba's understanding, is a fierce and loyal thing that is weaved and threaded into a person's core, inherently breathing the same air as Shino. 

“I'm all for it. Don't know if you are though,” he stretches, his eyes a different story to the joke his mouth tells.

Shino bumps arms with him, the silent  _ I'm fine, thank you for proposing that we walk, but I will be fine. _

It's all Kiba needs to start sprinting in the depth of the night time.

  
  


[The clock reads 1:34, and the lockscreen of Inuzuka Kiba's phone shows a montage of him, Shino, Kurenai and Hinata, with Akamaru perched between Hinata and Shino.

The song that is playing is Ed Sheeran's Castle on the Hill]

 

The earphones between them snag and pull - it's an awful arrangement, and he half hates Shino for taking one earphone and plugging it in his own ear without any preamble, and promptly falling asleep on his shoulder. 

It's so tangled and it wraps everywhere around them that Kiba, who by nature cannot remain still even at the threat of God himself descending onto the human plane to smite him dead, is at a conflict. Shino is a light sleeper, and getting him to nap for more than an hour at any interval during the day is a triumph he shares with Hinata and Kurenai. Shino is by nature, also a closed off person, and suspicious to the point of paranoia, so that he physically cannot fall asleep on any place where he hasn't done a sweeping and removal of all potential threats to his person. It took literal years for Shino to fall asleep near anyone outside of his family, and it was through sheer exhaustion of Kurenai wearing into his muscles and body after long hours of sparring. 

And because Shino is an idiot, or apparently Kiba just poses little to no threat despite his  _ everything,  _ Shino had taken one look at him once in primary school and decided that  _ yeah, this is a good idiot to trust my unconscious body to guard and protect while I conked out. _

Obviously it fills him with inexplicable bliss and all those tingles that are painful and numbing like he just tried to move after contracting pins and needles. He's deliriously happy, but  _ by Tsume  _ he has to move or it'll look really bad for everyone in the next 3 minutes.

Shino stirs, and Kiba's done it. He woke the person that need sleep the most. He's a complete buffoon, a moron, an incompetent simpleton who cannot even manage to stay still enough to -

Shino lifts his head, dark eyes assessing, and leans his chin on his collarbone, breath light.

“You can move around if it's uncomfortable for you. Sorry I just did that.”

Kiba hasn't mentioned he doesn't have a brain. He breathes in and breathes back out a soft  _ Shut the fuck up. _

Nobody really quite react. He groans, deep in his throat, an  _ end me  _ on his lips, and bumps his forehead to Shino’s, an arm winding behind the back next to him.

“Sorry I woke you up.”

“I have odd sleeping habits. I don't sleep a lot, Kiba, don't.”

“But -”

Shino’s lips hover near his cheek and there might have been movements, skin meeting skin, but he's high on no sleep, and delirious in general around Shino, so he just whines and hides his nose in Shino's hair.

“If you have your way, Inuzuka,” Shino laughs, not unkindly. Never cruel. “You'll apologise for every fault in this world as if you are the one responsible for everything going wrong.”

“Well -”

“Who tutored Naruto to the place that he rightly deserved, which then guaranteed him a place in the engineering prep program?”

“That's. Uzumaki studied for most of it. I just explained shit. But that's irrelevant -”

“Who fought Neji in front of the Hyuuga compound because he was being, and I quote verbatim,  _ being a dick to himself _ ?”

“I actually have no words for that. He was being a dick. To himself, which is the worst thing a person should do.”

“Who regularly remembers all the important dates for Kurenai, and brings her flowers and cards? Who walks Hinata to the defence force base every day that she is in Konoha for, and packs her lunch?”

Shino’s voice softens, a slide from cotton to silk.

“Who told me  _ the world may be against you, but you're one of my own, Shino, and I will defy the world for you, no questions asked?” _

“Your point?”

Shino's finger, the ring one, the one that holds promises and runs a direct blood vein to his heart, finds Kiba's own. They interlock, and Kiba thinks back to the promise they swear on, in the darkened street of Konoha, with the moon as their witness. 

“Wouldn't you say you're the reason things are going right, from all those evidence I amassed at the top of my head?”

He doesn't answer, doesn't let go of Shino's finger, and grumbles something that sounds like an excuse even with his convoluted reasoning.

“You always act like you owe everyone you see and the world something, but let me tell you something that I should have, honestly, tell you a long time ago -”

[The time is 2:15. The lockscreen changes to a different song. 

Troye Sivan - Youth: Now Playing]

“There may not be equality in this grossly unfair world, and yours is a soul that searches endlessly for this balance and this had broken you many times over and over again. If I could, and I would, I would have sheltered you from all this pain. But it made you stronger and you get up every time, all battered and bruised, and you keep going. There are words out there that can perhaps describe this pride that threatens to burst me open at the seams. I am proud, so proud, but you have fought and fought the world for others that you forget about yourself. I don't want to pledge oaths of love for you now, not when you don't regard yourself as worthy of love. The most abounding gift you could have given me is you loving yourself. That should be primary to your person and not loving me, or anyone else. I am honoured, beyond anything, that you deem me worthy of that boundless love you house in you, but now I must ask you to be selfish and act for yourself.”

Shino’s other hand curls into a fist, and it bumps gently to the left side of his chest, where his own heart thrums a steady rhythm.

“All my youth, all my time, all my thoughts, they belongs to you. That is fixed in the moon. But before you can love me with all of you, you must love yourself first. Because it hurts me when you hate a part of yourself where I love everywhere and everything you have with fervour. We have time, even if we don't have our youth. Take your time, for us.”

He sniffles, but not quite. These night time escapades haven't been happening for a long time, per se, but they have been happening, and Shino makes his lungs collapse onto their own weight every single time.

“Shino, that's so,” he blubbers into hair,  _ genuine it makes me want to throw myself out a window.  _ “Thanks.”

“You can talk to me. I'm never going away.”

“Damn. Here I was thinking we could do the running away together.”

“Get into vet school, sort yourself out, and maybe. Some day. It'll happen.”

He lifts up his face, rearranging himself - really, they're on public transport, and he is out here plastering himself all against Shino, all intimate and reserved for spaces where there is only them. 

His eyes meet Shino, and he holds out his pinkie.

Shino smiles, not quite in his mouth, but not fully in his eyes either, and hooks his own finger through Kiba's, silently completing his promise. 

The bus hums along to Troye Sivan, as they ride to Hinata's house.

“Tired yet?” Shino asks from the top of his hair. 

Kiba is drowsy. But if he sleeps now he'll actually feel worse. Maybe Neji has those tea. Or Hinata has a way to kick the drowsiness away from his bones.

“A little. But I'll stay up,” he slaps a hand to his yawning mouth, “to watch the sunrise.”

There is no point in needlessit singling out the fact that Shino enjoys very few things in life, and one of them is watching the sun rises over the horizon. 

Kiba is feeling needlessly dramatic today. It's the 14th of February after all. Why not. Shino did it, and now he has to pull his own weight of rug pulling.

“Well,” Shino hides a smile in his now zipped up hood. “May I ask why?”

“I just want to watch it with you,” he shrugs, and absolutely fails at being nonchalant. 

“As you wish,” Shino links their hands together. 

Kiba squeezes his hand a bit back too hard, and links their pinkie together. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me across all these things: [twitter](https://twitter.com/tacobell_com), [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/jenny_benny) and [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tacomakers-central)


End file.
